Glass Mirror
by Mnemosyne's Elegy
Summary: Gray feels like glass: translucent, invisible, easily shattered. It's like he's not there at all. He wants someone to look at him instead of through him. But maybe he's too afraid to let them, and sometimes nothing is what it seems.
1. Part 1

**Note: Well, here's a hot mess of a piece lol Waaay back when, I ran across a couple of fics in a sort of unusual style, and of course my first thought was, "I'm gonna do that too lolz". Because idk, that's the way I am. And in theory it was going well, but, as usual, I went pretty overboard and it turned into a bigger thing than it was supposed to. And I just arbitrarily split it into two parts because it's honestly too long for this and I was too lazy to edit 9k words in one go. Apparently I decided to cover Gray's whole life instead of what the original idea was XD My bad.**

**Also, shout out to Ice Trail even though it was pretty low quality. I have finally acknowledged it briefly in a fic lol**

* * *

**Part 1**

* * *

When Gray was little, he looked at the world and the world looked back.

Sometimes his father was a bit busy or his mother was a little distracted, but if he called for them, they turned their gazes on him and he felt like the only person in the world. Sometimes his friends made plans without him, but they always came back to play and he was allowed to be one of them.

It was the last time the world looked beautiful. Maybe it was the last time he did too.

* * *

The first time he disappears is when Deliora rampages through his home without sparing any of them a second glance. They are ants beneath its feet, not even worth noticing.

The fire and falling buildings and screaming ring loud in his ears and make his heart pound. Everything is so _close_, so _loud_, so _frightening_. It's a nightmare, a battle zone, and he doesn't know how to escape.

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He doesn't escape unscathed.

Sometimes he doesn't think he escaped at all. Sometimes he wishes he hadn't.

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When the demon comes past, his parents scream and shelter him as best they can and fall in his place. He kneels by their sides and shakes them and screams for them to _get up, get up, don't leave me_, but they don't answer.

Their eyes stare up at him, shiny and glazed like polished glass, but they look right through him.

He disappears.

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In that moment, there's no one in the world who knows he exists at all.

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He's so busy processing that his parents are forever-gone that he doesn't have time to get out of the way when the building groans and collapses on top of him. It's a miracle that his little body isn't crushed under the weight of all that stone, but it doesn't feel like it.

The last thing he sees as his vision blurs and darkens is the demon ambling off. It never looked at him. It didn't even care enough to kill him, nor did it care enough to have killed his parents.

It just didn't see them at all.

* * *

Gray learns something that day.

He is a small child, but not a stupid one. He doesn't understand the world, not yet, maybe he never will, but he learns one of its fundamental truths.

Sometimes, the world doesn't see you, no matter how much you wave to get its attention. Sometimes, you are so small and unimportant that it looks right through you.

Sometimes, you are too insignificant to matter at all.

* * *

And then suddenly he exists again for one brief, blazing moment.

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When Ur and Lyon find him, dig him out of the rubble and fuss over him in worry, Gray almost doesn't realize that they're talking to him. He watches with an odd sense of detachment, wondering who they are and what they think they're doing.

But then they look him in the eye, and it hits him like a punch to the gut. They _see _him.

That's why he goes with them, when only a few moments before he was content to wither away and disappear for good.

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As it turns out, they don't see nearly enough.

They don't see who he was before, that laughing, smiling, carefree child who liked ice cream and piggyback rides and making snow angels with his family.

Maybe that isn't their fault, though. Maybe that boy really doesn't exist anymore after all.

As it turns out, Gray can't see him either.

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He decides that maybe he doesn't want them to see him after all. What's left to see? He doesn't want to share the memories of before. Those belong to him and a bunch of dead people.

He's different, anyway. Angry and hateful and grieving, all things that he doesn't recognize in himself.

The first time he sees his new reflection in the mirror, he stares right through it for a long moment before realizing that it's himself.

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Looking back, he tried so hard to hide from Ur and Lyon. He hid himself, because at that point 'himself' was weak and insignificant and broken.

He thinks that maybe they realized that. Maybe they saw more than he realized. Maybe they would have seen more if he had dropped his walls and let them look at the real him.

He wishes that he had.

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They think that he's too numb and closed-off and self-absorbed to pay much mind to them either. They're only half right.

He _is _self-absorbed and intently focused on his own goal of getting his revenge. Because of that, there are a lot of things he probably doesn't see. Maybe he doesn't see how much they care until it's too late.

But he also likes watching people. When people on the street walk by, their gazes skimming sightlessly over him, he reads worlds and stories in their eyes, in every line of their face, in each movement they make. It's amazing what you can see when you really _look_.

So he sees Ur and Lyon. He's not stupid. He sees how Ur tries to strike that balance between teacher and mother and support. He sees how Lyon tries to understand and make friends.

He just doesn't care, because he's too focused on his revenge.

And maybe that makes him no better than Deliora.

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Gray says he hates Deliora, but it's hard to hate something so big that it doesn't even know you exist. So he hates himself. He hates the world. He hates everyone who comes close to seeing him, because it's easier to hate something if it at least notices you.

He doesn't go after Deliora because he hates it. He goes after Deliora because he wants to make it _see _him. He wants it to see what it has done. Mostly he just wants to feel like he has a justification to hate it. Like what happened to him and his family was big and important and not something as insignificant as stomping on an anthill.

He learns magic so that he can throw everything he has at Deliora because he doesn't want to be weak and insignificant. He doesn't want to disappear. He wants the demon to see him no matter what it costs.

That might easily result in his death, and he knows it.

He just doesn't care.

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"I will seal your darkness."

And although one of Ur's eyes has turned a translucent, icy blue that seems like it should be milky with blindness, she stares straight into Gray's soul and it _burns_. She sees something deep inside him that even he was afraid to see.

He begs and cries and screams. _Don't go, don't leave me, I'm sorry_.

But even though she sees him, even though she sees how much he wants her to stay and how broken her death will make him, she finishes casting the spell anyway.

And that hurts more than anything.

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"It's your fault! You killed her!"

Lyon's eyes are bright with hate and anger and grief as he shakes Gray, but they also stare right into him. They bore deep down into his soul, and are bright with contempt at what they find there.

And Gray wonders why he wanted to be seen so badly, because nothing hurts like having someone see you and realize that there's nothing worth loving.

* * *

It's an ugly paradox.

Gray wants someone to look at him instead of through him, to see through his walls. See _him_. He wants someone to look at his heart and soul and tell him that they love him anyway. That he's not really an ugly person after all. That he doesn't have to be alone.

He also wants to hide from them. He's afraid of what the world might see in him. He thinks there might be something rotten and ugly at his core—whatever it is that Lyon saw, whatever it is that haunts his nightmares—and he isn't sure anyone can love him if they see it.

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Of course, can they really love him if they don't see it, either?

Does it matter?

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He feels like glass: translucent and invisible and easily shattered. People look right through him, even when their eyes are pointed in his direction. It's like he's not there at all.

Maybe he doesn't want anyone to see into the ugly depths of his soul, but he doesn't want to disappear again either. He creates a façade, a disguise. He picks and chooses innocuous traits and habits to wrap around himself like a second skin, so that there's _something _covering his glass heart.

Many of these things he borrows from other people. He watches them and appropriates some of their mannerisms and traits. If they're things that belong to other people, if they aren't really _him_, then it doesn't matter if people don't like what they see. After all, it isn't him they dislike, is it? It's themselves, even if they don't realize that they're looking into a mirror. A mirror made of glass that reflects the world back at itself.

Maybe that's a cowardly way of looking at things, but if Gray's a coward, no one can see it anyway.

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The thing about glass is that it's very easy to shatter. Gray is brittle on the inside, although the self he shows the world is tough and brave and strong. Sometimes he can almost believe it himself.

Gray is very afraid of shattering, as afraid as he is of going through his entire life without truly being seen. He wants, somewhere deep down in his heart, to have someone see him for who he truly is, even if he isn't entirely sure of who that might be anymore.

He is afraid that those two moments will be one and the same.

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They say that breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck.

But Gray has already had enough bad luck to last a lifetime, so maybe it doesn't matter after all.

* * *

He goes west to find those powerful mages Ur told them about. He's going to find someone who can help him undo iced shell and wipe away his mistake. He wants to go back and wipe out that ugly part of himself that got Ur killed, and the next best thing is to undo the spell that killed her.

He wants to see her again. He doesn't want to be alone.

He runs into a man called Gildarts on the way. A weird guy for sure, but extremely powerful. Gray is looking for powerful mages, so he goes along for the ride. Gildarts seems a little shallow and doesn't look too closely, but that's okay. Gray is hiding behind his anger anyway, and his last encounter with Lyon tells him that it's probably better not to let anyone see him too clearly.

But despite his general grumpiness, Gray decides that he likes Gildarts. It's hard when they have to go their separate ways. Gray doesn't want to be alone again, but it's not like he can say that.

He goes on to Fairy Tail, the guild Gildarts told him about. Its master can't undo iced shell. Gray stays because he has nowhere else to go.

Gildarts doesn't come back for a long time. Whenever he returns, he doesn't usually stay for long. Still, he teases Gray and gives him a little attention and it's enough.

When Natsu joins the guild, he immediately attaches himself to Gildarts when the latter returns from his travels. They play and roughhouse and leave Gray out.

Gray watches sullenly, but he's too proud to beg for attention. So what if Gildarts likes Natsu better? It's probably because Natsu is nice and cheerful and Gray is not. Looking at the two of them together, you'd never think Gray had known Gildarts first.

But whatever. Gray doesn't need him. Gray doesn't need anyone.

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Cana is the closest thing he has to a friend in the beginning, but he thinks that maybe it's because she's the one looking for a friend. She's talkative and friendly and is patient with his rudeness.

She's also lonely, which is why she's willing to tolerate so much from him. She was the only child in the guild before he arrived, and he knows that she makes overtures of friendship because he's her only option, not because he's necessarily the kind of person she'd want to be friends with.

She's looking for family even more than a friend. He isn't sure how he knows this, but he senses it on her. She's trying so hard to make a friend that she can find one even in him.

She's blinded by his brusque mannerisms, but she stands by him anyway. She's the kind of friend he'd like to have someday, he thinks. He even considers dropping the mask to see if she can find the real him underneath.

He chickens out. He always does.

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Loke comes a few years later. Gray isn't sure what it is that attracts them to each other. Maybe it's that they both wear masks. Loke plays the flirt—_is _a flirt—but there are serious scars somewhere underneath. Gray can see it when a celestial spirit mage walks past or when Loke gets secretive about his rather mysterious magic.

Loke doesn't _see_, but he notes the mask and knows there's something underneath. Gray can tell. As a matter of fact, he thinks that maybe Cana has realized it by now too.

The three of them gravitate towards each other. They talk and laugh and tease. They even form a no-strings-attached team, going out on jobs together when it suits them and going their separate ways when they'd rather be alone.

They don't entirely see each other, but there's a mutual non-understanding. They all know that they're all hiding things.

They each keep their secrets, and that's okay. It's not quite satisfying, but it's good enough.

* * *

Erza is different. Gray doesn't want anything to do with her. He wants her attention. She drives him crazy, but he wants her to notice him.

She ignores everyone when she first joins the guild. She barely even talks. Gray doesn't like being ignored. Isn't that why he polished all his edges and turned himself into a mirror, just so that the light would reflect off his glass heart and say _'here I am, look at me!'_? He's grown used to not being seen for who he is, but he can no longer stand not being seen at all.

He figures that the easiest way to get someone's attention is to throw a punch at them.

But Erza is _strong_ and rebuffs him with barely a second glance. So he tries again and again and again. Sometimes he wins a precious half-second of her attention, and he fights for it tooth and nail.

It makes him hate her, too.

He hates that he relies on her so much, that he relies on her so much precisely because she's the one who refuses to acknowledge him at all. He hates her for making him feel invisible again, like a small child in a big world who is too insignificant to matter at all.

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The river changes everything.

He tracks her down to corner her into another skirmish, and instead finds her sitting on the riverbank in tears. When she turns, her good eye still welling with tears, Gray feels like she sees him for the first time.

He thinks that maybe it's the first time he sees her too.

He sees the pain and grief that she hides beneath her indifferent mask. She wears her armor like he wears his mirror.

Maybe, Gray thinks, he was so busy trying to make her see him that he forgot to see her too.

"If you like being alone so much, then why are you crying?" he asks when she makes her excuses.

Her eye widens and her lips part slightly. Gray has seen right down to her core, and in return she really looks at him. Not that brief, sidelong glance she gives him when he demands yet another rematch, but a long, genuine look. And despite the eyepatch, he feels like she sees more with her one eye than anyone else here ever has with two.

Gray stomps over and sits in the grass beside her, scowling and avoiding eye contact as he stares out at the river. Erza stands beside him in silence.

Neither is looking at the other anymore, but somehow it's like they see everything.

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Two days later, Erza grabs Gray's arm and drags him out of the guild. She drags him back down to the river and whips out a sword that she points at his neck.

"Make one of your ice swords," she says. "Your form is terrible, and I'll have to teach you if you ever expect to be a match for me one of these days."

It catches Gray by surprise, but he can't help but grin as he complies and their lessons begin.

The guild gossips, of course. The two most standoffish children—who up until this point seemed to hate each other, even—are always running off together. When they see the sword fighting lessons, they assume they're just more brawls. There's some confusion over whether Gray and Erza are friends because they spend more time together or enemies because they're fighting more than ever and with swords to boot.

Gray doesn't care. That's not what's going on. He and Erza are building a friendship, building trust. When no one else notices them, they see each other and that's enough.

* * *

It would come as a surprise to no one to learn that Gray is the one who threw the first punch. It might be more surprising to learn that he didn't throw the first name.

Natsu is everything that Gray is not, and he's even more annoying because he's a little too much like how Gray was before Deliora. Everyone loves Natsu right away when he joins the guild, because, unlike Gray, Natsu is nice and cheerful and fun.

But although that first punch comes partly from jealousy and annoyance and resentment, it comes mostly from a desire to be seen. Natsu fits in with everyone right away, and Gray doesn't want to be left out. He can easily read what kinds of things this boy will respond to and acts accordingly.

Natsu grins and fights back, and for a moment Gray feels the magic that everyone else seems to feel from the little fireball. There's something about Natsu's eyes that makes you feel like he really _sees _you.

Gray imagines that they can talk through every punch and kick and jab. That they can read each other. He sees that although Natsu _is _happy-go-lucky and naïvely optimistic, he is also lonely and constantly searching for someone he's lost. Gray feels a sort of kinship with him.

"Is that the best you've got, ice block?" Natsu challenges.

And just like that, the illusion is shattered.

"Bring it on, flame brain," Gray snarls back.

Gray is more than ice, more than glass. He is not invisible, someone to be seen through, walked through, ignored. Natsu doesn't see him. Natsu sees an angry ice mage challenging him and thinks he's found a good sparring partner. Maybe even an eventual friend and rival. He doesn't see what's underneath and didn't get the same glimpse that Gray did.

Gray can't help but try again and again and again over the years, fighting for attention—_look at me, why can't you see?_—but it never quite works. Natsu sees the surface façade, the one that mirrors a rival back at him just like he wants, and doesn't look deeper.

Gray pretends that he isn't disappointed.

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Happy is a bit of a strange one, but Gray hopes that his namesake might rub off on him. So far, no extra happiness is forthcoming.

Still, Gray has a secret soft spot for animals, and he enjoys watching Happy grow up with Natsu and Lisanna. Cats are regarded as clever, seeing things that others do not, and Gray has a secret hope that it might prove true in more ways than the supernatural. He hasn't had a lot of luck with humans, so maybe he'll have more with animals.

Not that it's really that easy to regard Happy as an animal, honestly. He's more like the cutest and fluffiest friend in the guild. He brings Gray a sort of comfort in his own way, even if he doesn't realize it. In exchange, Gray sees his budding insecurities about not being able to do enough to help Natsu and his friends and does his best to subtly quell them.

"Would you like to go fishing?" Gray asks one day.

Happy has been fretting about how Natsu almost got injured on a job and how he couldn't do anything about it. He could use a fish right now.

"Sure!" Happy says. "Let me just get Natsu!"

Gray's mood sours. Of course Happy would immediately turn to Natsu even though those two go fishing all the time. It's inconceivable that Gray might be sufficient on his own.

So the three of them go fishing. As expected, Gray is the third wheel. He sits quietly off by himself while Natsu and Happy laugh and fish, and offers terse responses whenever they think to include him. The rest of the time, he is as invisible as glass. As an ice block, even.

He wonders if Happy even realizes that he doesn't like fishing—never has, thinks it's boring and has never been fond of the taste of fish to start with—and only suggested the trip to cheer the little feline up.

Then he chastises himself for being so silly. Of course Happy doesn't realize. That would mean he would have to actually know Gray.

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Lucy provides a fresh opportunity when she joins the guild some years later. She hasn't grown up seeing Gray's masks like the others have. Maybe he can do better with her, start fresh.

That goes, as expected, poorly. In hindsight, stripping probably wasn't the way to go. It definitely gets Lucy's attention, but not in a good way. Now all she sees when she looks at him is a stripper. Fair enough.

It's a habit that came from Ur's teachings, but it stayed for two equally important reasons: it makes people notice him and it makes people not see him at all. It's an easy way to attract attention when he is feeling a little too invisible, and it also makes people see only the habit instead of looking deeper. The more physically exposed he is, the less chance there is of anyone seeing into his heart.

He sees Lucy better than she sees him. Underneath her cheerfulness and innocence and naiveté, he sees her lack of self-confidence and her insecurities and her driving need to prove herself. Proving herself as a mage will take time, but she has other things that might give her validation, doesn't she?

Gray accidentally loses his shirt the first time he follows Natsu's lead and breaks into Lucy's apartment, and that, of course, means she's too focused on that little fact. Sometimes he wishes he could break that habit, but he has a feeling that will lead to a complicated can of worms that he isn't ready to open yet.

He's more careful the next time and keeps all his clothes on. He finds her manuscript without a problem and reads through it carefully. He's not much of a reader, but he'll make an exception.

"What are you _doing_?" Lucy screeches when she returns and finds him reading.

He opens his mouth, but she's still ranting and her eyes stare right through him to reach her written words. He's just a nuisance, as usual. Someone who's there but not really important enough to pay much mind to aside from any mischief he might cause.

He thinks about telling her that her writing is good and she should be proud of it, maybe giving a little advice about slight inconsistencies of characterization to show that he really did care enough to pay attention for her, but instead he shakes his head and leaves.

* * *

"Sometimes it feels like no one really sees me," he tells Erza one day.

"Maybe," she says, "it's because you're too afraid to let them."

* * *

**Note: Okay, I say I split it in half arbitrarily and that's true, but there's also a sort of natural division between the first half and second half and I broke it up pretty much in the middle of the structural and thematic parallels.**

**emmahoshi: Yeah, everyone has a different perspective, that's for sure. And gosh are we all super contradictory bundles of messy emotions! XD Of course, that's what makes character studies interesting, I guess. Yeah, I hear you. I see a little of myself in it too, but I guess that shouldn't be too surprising. We tend to write what we know, to an extent. Aw, I'm sorry. I hope everything's okay. Maybe you're jumping to conclusions a little bit? It can be hard to tell with people. I hope it works out.**


	2. Part 2

**Guest: Ha ha, thanks. It's definitely a different style than I normally write, but I've always liked experimenting. And sometimes present tense is interesting to write in for certain things. It's a different feel. When I've written a fic in present, I have to be careful or I'll keep lapsing into it when I go back to third person for the next story lol Hm... Well, I finished writing "Reconstruction" on March 7th 2018, and I finished writing this fic on April 22nd 2018. So actually, I only wrote this less than two months after finishing "Recon" :) I also wrote "All Fall Down" right after this one and "Year Without the Sun" right before. So... Idk, it's pretty eclectic. I have a definite distinct "normal" style, but I also experiment with a lot of different styles and subjects. It's what keeps me interested in writing, I guess. So it's a bit of a grab bag lol**

* * *

**Part 2**

* * *

Erza lets Gray try her strawberry cake one day. It seems like a momentous occasion to him, because everyone knows that Erza _does not share _her strawberry cake. So when he puts it in his mouth and tastes nothing but sickeningly sweet sugar that makes his face want to contort in disgust, it's a little bit of a disappointment.

But Gray isn't going to ruin the gesture by saying the cake is disgusting, so he smooths out his expression and smiles. Erza stares at him in horror.

"How can you not like it?" she demands.

"I do! It's…good."

"Please, Gray. I know you better than that. It's written all over your face."

Gray's smile turns more genuine at that. He can always count on Erza to see him when no one else does.

She drags him to the bakery and nearly buys them out of cake. She makes him try every kind until they find the flavors he likes. By the end, they're both sick to their stomachs and even Erza can't stand to think about cake anymore, but they're laughing.

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Erza still goes to the river when she's upset. Gray keeps an eye out for the signs that she's getting stressed and adopts a route to the guild that goes past the river so that he can throw a glance over on his way past to double-check that she's not there.

She thinks it's magic, that he has some kind of special locating ability to know when she's down at the river, but the truth is far simpler. Gray watches. He pays attention.

He follows her to the river and sits with her. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they sit in silence, but always it's his way of saying _I see you, you aren't alone_.

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Erza steps between Gray and Natsu when she catches them fighting. She whacks them both over the head and lectures them about being friends, and they grumble and whine and grin at each other slyly behind her back because they know they'll go right back at it as soon as they're out of her sight.

Erza lectures them both, but she's watching Gray with a knowing expression.

Later, she says, "You don't have to fight with him to get his attention, you know."

"I know."

"Maybe if you just talked to him instead…"

"Eh, that's okay. I have you."

* * *

Both Gray and Erza have their walls, their masks, their armor. They don't talk about the pasts that haunt them or go through every little detail of their feelings.

But they know what's important. Gray doesn't need to know her past to know her. He sees who she is now and how she's grown from who she was.

Would he like to know more? Yes, he would like to know everything about her.

But what they have is okay, because they see each other more clearly than anyone else does. Sometimes Gray thinks she's the only one who sees him at all.

* * *

It's a total accident, the result of several complete coincidences and sheer dumb luck, but when Gray sees Deliora again after all these years and what's left of Ur, it feels like fate.

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It catches him off guard, and he freaks out. It's almost a relief when the others decide to go to sleep and wait for the moon to rise.

He doesn't sleep. He sits and waits, hunched over and on the verge of breaking. Natsu falls asleep right away, but Lucy and Happy stay up. He wishes they would go to sleep too.

"Gray?" Lucy asks. "Are you crying? Lyra, play something happier!"

Gray denies it vehemently as he scrubs at his face, but it gives him pause. He wasn't being obvious about it—Lucy would have only noticed if she was paying attention.

After she falls asleep on the hard ground, Happy creeps over and curls up beside Gray. They don't speak, but there's some kind of comfort in the silent company.

Gray is awake long after the others fall asleep, watching Deliora and what is left of Ur as he tries to puzzle out what's going on here. Occasionally, his mind circles back to the others. It seems like they've finally seen some part of him underneath his mask.

It should be everything he's ever wanted, but this isn't what he wanted them to see. He's afraid that if they see the rest, he's going to be kicked out in the cold again.

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Lyon takes Gray's breath away. It's like a kick while he's down to see him again so soon after Deliora and Ur's ice.

The hate in his eyes hasn't cooled in the decade they've spent apart, and in his eyes Gray sees reflected all his ugliest, weakest, most broken parts. Lyon still sees all the worst pieces, the pieces Gray has spent years afraid that someone else might notice, and it hurts.

It hurts.

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"Then cut me down if that's what you really want to do," Gray says. The blade bites into his fingers and palm as he positions the point over his heart and stares back at Erza coldly. "I'm going to finish this."

Erza hesitates, shock written across her face at his show of defiance. She could try tying him down anyway and dragging him back with the others to face the music.

She pulls the sword out of his hand and lowers the point to the ground.

Gray turns and shoves his way out of the tent, intent on finding Lyon and putting an end to this nonsense.

Erza was never going to stop him, because she can look into his heart and see it breaking.

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Gray lets the water run through his fingers and feels his heart constrict. What remained of Ur's ice is gone, melted into the sea, but she has never been more present. Lyon has lost sight of her in the midst of his mad schemes, but Gray has never stopped seeing her face in his nightmares and memories.

Deliora is free again. Gray feels an odd sense of detachment. He doesn't care if the demon sees him anymore. All he cares about is preventing it from hurting what family he has left.

When Lyon, who can barely even stand anymore, still thinks he can defeat the demon, Gray knocks him out of the game with ease. Lyon might be a fool, but Gray…cares. Still. Lyon isn't going to get himself killed for this madcap scheme.

"Leave it," Gray says as he walks through the water, grim eyes fixed on Deliora. "I'll fix your mess."

He ignores Lyon's shouting, slides into the proper stance, and summons the magic. He has already been barely-there for a decade. Maybe it's just as well that he finally disappears entirely.

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"I don't want you to die. Did my voice not reach you?"

Natsu doesn't look back, but Gray feels his eyes searing into his very soul.

And when the gamble pays off, Gray can't help but cry.

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Gray helps Lyon back up out of the cavern, but avoids eye contact. Neither of them knows what to do with the other, and Gray doesn't want to risk catching Lyon's disgusted gaze again.

Still, he can't help but look back one last time as he and the team are leaving to figure out this mess with the village.

"What are you looking at?" Lyon snaps.

"You," Gray murmurs. He turns away. "Maybe you should think about joining a guild."

He feels Lyon's gaze boring into his back as he walks away, but he doesn't look back.

* * *

Everything changes after Galuna. Gray thinks it's because his team has seen through his mask for the first time and glimpsed some part of the real him. They see more than they did and now they keep digging deeper, looking for the rest.

But he wonders if maybe he has also changed. Maybe he's finally noticing something he had been missing all along.

Maybe, he thinks, his friends had not been the only blind ones.

* * *

Gray throws everything he has into each punch and kick, every shred of anger and grief that's been building since he woke up this morning from a parade of nightmares that left him shaking. Sometimes it helps to get out the helpless anger—Gray and Natsu have used each other as punching bags many times over the years when the situation calls for it—but it does nothing for the aching hole in his heart.

Natsu catches Gray's fist in an iron grip.

"Let me go, let me–"

"You're not in the mood for fighting," Natsu says simply. "Let's go."

Gray is too surprised to protest when Natsu steers him outside instead. They walk the streets in silence, and Natsu offers no explanation. The sudden lack of distraction makes the grief well up in Gray's chest again, but Natsu's presence keeps him from breaking down.

He wonders if maybe Natsu _has _been able to read some of the messages they sent back and forth with each blow over the years. Maybe it wasn't quite as much of a one-sided conversation as he'd thought.

Gray finds comfort in the silence heavy with unspoken words and in having Natsu nearby, making sure he doesn't shatter.

.

.

.

"Do you want to go fishing?" Happy asks.

Gray frowns in bemusement. "Natsu isn't free?"

"Oh, he is. We were actually planning to go on a fishing trip today, but I wanted to invite you to come along. You know, if you want to."

Gray stares at Happy as if he's never seen him before. He is always going to be the third wheel where Natsu and Happy are concerned, but… Usually he's trying to be included but they unknowingly push him out. If he wants to do something with one of them, the other somehow gets invited along and he disappears into the background.

They do not normally invite _him _to come along when they're doing their little bonding things. Maybe he will still be the third wheel, but it's somehow different when he's getting an invitation instead of being undermined. It makes him feel a little less invisible.

He smiles a little. "I'd love to."

.

.

.

"Again?" Lucy asks in exasperation when she comes home to find Gray with his feet kicked up on her desk as he reads through her latest manuscript.

"Welcome home," he says with a smirk. "Someone had a late night."

"I thought I told you to stop–" She pauses, nibbles at her lower lip, and drops her eyes to the floor. "What do you think?" she asks nervously.

Gray blinks at her in surprise. She's never asked for his opinion before. So he tells her all the things he's never quite said. It's good work and she should be proud of it, and if she has a little time then maybe she might look into this or that.

By the end, she's forgotten her nerves and is watching him with wide eyes. When she thanks him, he just shrugs and smiles.

"You should smile more," she says, before flushing.

This puzzles him. "I smile plenty."

"Yeah," she mumbles, "but it's not usually so…genuine."

And Gray smiles again, because maybe she's been watching a little after all.

* * *

Erza is in astronomically high spirits when she gathers the team together for their next job. They can feel the difference in their dynamic, less like distant guildmates now and more like family.

She catches Gray's eye and smiles, and he wonders if she's so excited because they're drawing closer now that the others have finally starting seeing him for who he is. But then it occurs to him that maybe she's excited because _he _is seeing _them_. Perhaps he is the one who has been standing apart from the rest of the team, so convinced they couldn't see him that he didn't bother giving them the opportunity.

So he takes a step closer and lets the mask flake away a little more. The façade is still there, but he takes baby steps to unveil one little piece of himself at a time. Will the others see him or will they look right through him as if he's glass? Only time will tell, but now he's willing to find out.

He smiles. From the way Lucy's face lights up, he can tell it's a genuine one.

* * *

Gray snorts as he spots Natsu hanging off Gildarts outside the guild. He hadn't even realized the old man was back yet, but it's good to see him around again.

"Gray!" Gildarts bellows. "Wow, it's been a long time! When did you get so big? I remember when you were knee-high!"

Gray rolls his eyes as he sidesteps the duo to head inside. "Funny thing, that. Turns out people keep growing even if you aren't watching."

"Help me take him out!" Natsu cries.

"Nah, you're gonna lose. Have fun, though."

Gildarts manages to snag Gray's sleeve. "Where are you going, kid? I've got a ton of stories from my adventures. I know you and Natsu are dying to hear them. And it's been a while since you've told me what you've been up to."

Gray darts an uncertain look between Gildarts and Natsu. It's been a long time since they've acknowledged him. But Gildarts is looking at him now, so he smiles a little hesitantly and joins them.

.

.

.

Gray is almost as drunk as Cana, and he realizes hazily that this was a bad idea. He doesn't drink much, but he had just been feeling so _bad _today. Not even anything in particular, just the memories pressing all around.

Now he's _way _too drunk, but he still grabs Cana's arm and drags her out the door. He always walks her home when she's too drunk to get there safely on her own, and tonight is no exception even if he staggers and sways nearly as much as she does.

Getting her to her apartment is no easy feat, and he's still faced with the prospect of the trek back home.

"Stay," Cana slurs, tugging him inside. "You're so drunk. Spend the night so you don't end up in a ditch."

He protests, but she shoves him down onto the couch and the world is tilting too dangerously for him to reasonably expect to make it back to his apartment anyway. Cana drops a blanket on him, but pauses with one hand on the arm of the couch to steady herself instead of retreating to her bed.

"You don't gotta get drunk to hide," she mumbles. "That's my thing. You don't always have to do everything alone."

Even through his blurry vision and hazy mind, Gray sees her seeing him.

.

.

.

Gray knew Loke had his secrets, but being a _celestial spirit_? No, that's unexpected. He isn't sure what this means, and it has him on edge. What does it mean for Loke and the guild?

"Don't worry," Loke says with a grin and a wink, "I should still be able to be your partner when the S-Class trials come up."

Gray frowns. "That's not what I'm worried about."

Loke's smile softens a little. "Lucy will be a good master. I can still hang around the guild sometimes, with you and Cana and the rest. We'll work something out."

Even when he turns away to finish talking to Lucy and then disappear, Gray can still feel him watching from behind his glasses.

* * *

Gray had always been something of an ugly paradox. He craved attention and yet hid from it, too ashamed to let the real him be seen even though he desperately wanted someone to accept him.

He stayed mostly in the background and was content to let Natsu and the others take the spotlight, but he had his own little ploys to get attention when he felt like he was disappearing. Fighting with Natsu, making a sarcastic nuisance of himself, even the stripping. Ways to get attention but not let anyone look too closely.

Now that he feels like he's not as alone as he thought, his reliance on such ploys fades. If he fights with Natsu, it's because it's part of their friendship and he's looking for the fun. If he's sarcastic, it's just because he's a rather sarcastic person sometimes. If he strips, it's because it's a habit he picked up from Ur's training.

If he needs attention, he feels like he can get it now without all those other things.

* * *

The Tower brings Erza's past to light in a way that Gray has never seen it before. It doesn't change the way he sees her, exactly. He's already seen those deep, important pieces of her. It's just that now he has the context to explain them, maybe a better idea of her demons and how she faces them.

Apparently, how she wants to face them is alone.

Gray can't accept that any more than the rest of the team can. They will stand by her.

He will fight for her until the end.

.

.

.

Erza is both weaker and stronger than Gray has ever seen her before in the Tower, and he loves her all the more for it.

He remembers that little girl by the river.

He isn't going to lose her now.

.

.

.

When the dust settles, Gray sticks to her side. In the wake of the revelations about her old life and her old friends and, of course, Jellal, he doesn't want her to be alone.

She visits the river more frequently for a while, and Gray follows her down. He sits with her, sometimes talks, sometimes stays quiet. He likes to think that his company is enough.

.

.

.

The first time, she doesn't leave it to chance. She grabs his arm and brings him down to the river with her. They sit in silence, and Gray watches her reflection in the water. He drapes an arm around her shoulders and tugs her close.

_I've seen your ugliest pieces_, his silence says. _I've seen your shame and your weakness and your regrets. I see it and I love you anyway, and I will always be here when you need me_.

She hugs him back, so maybe she got the message.

* * *

The stalking and constant ploys to win affection and inability to take no for an answer are frustrating and often a bit creepy, but they aren't the main reason Gray doesn't like Juvia. He doesn't like Juvia because she lives in fantasies and projects them onto him.

He's dealt with people who only see his mirror-mask. He's dealt with people who see his ugliest pieces and hate him for it. He's dealt with people who look right through him like he doesn't exist at all.

But Juvia, she's not content with any of those things. She makes her own ideal and drapes it around him like a blanket. She sees something that she created entirely, and Gray hates it. He can't stand how she insists on seeing someone entirely different, someone who isn't him at all. It makes him feel more invisible and insignificant than ever.

Juvia is the exact opposite of Erza, and that's another strike against her. Gray doesn't need someone who tries to reinvent his image. He already has someone who sees him well enough.

* * *

Gray is blindsided again when Lyon shows up as part of the team to fight Oración Seis. They aren't exactly friends anymore. Apparently, they aren't exactly enemies either.

Gray doesn't know what to make of it. Lyon isn't looking at him the same way as before. The hate and contempt don't linger in his eyes anymore, and instead he eyes Gray like a puzzle.

It makes Gray uncomfortable. He isn't sure he wants to know what Lyon will find in him this time.

.

.

.

Gray will take on any fight to make sure Natsu can get Wendy back to Erza in time to stop the poison. He would, after all, do just about anything for Erza.

Lyon's help is unexpected, but it almost feels like old times for a brief few minutes there. He's as insufferable as ever, but he treats Gray almost like an equal and they actually work together.

And then he falls over a cliff with a bomb, and Gray is screaming to drown out the breaking of his heart.

.

.

.

Lyon is alive, of course.

"I knew you were too stubborn to die," Gray says with as much nonchalance as he can muster.

His throat is closing up. The hands he clenches by his sides are still bruised and scraped up from digging through the rubble. His eyes are dry, but his heart is rubbed raw.

Lyon doesn't snap back a snarky retort for once. He tilts his head and studies the younger mage with slightly narrowed, curious eyes. He's looking deep, peeling back Gray's defenses to expose what's underneath.

Gray averts his gaze, not comfortable with being laid bare after what happened last time Lyon saw him.

"You did well, kid," Lyon says.

Gray dares a glimpse back up, and Lyon's confidence is back again. His eyes aren't full of hate, but something softer and more understanding that Gray doesn't quite understand but hopes he has a lifetime to decipher. Whatever it is Lyon sees now, Gray wants to see it too.

"I don't need your approval," he snaps back, heat burning along his cheeks.

No one calls his bluff, but Lyon laughs and even Natsu and Lucy smile.

Gray thinks that maybe this is the first time in ages that he's let his true self shine through enough for everyone around him to see.

* * *

In retrospect, maybe Juvia and Erza weren't so different after all. Maybe Gray was the one who had been stupid and blind.

* * *

If Oración Seis gives Gray hope with Lyon, it takes hope from Erza with Jellal. He is alive and conveniently amnesic and now in jail.

Erza stands strong while the Knights take him away, but later she escapes to sit by herself and crumble on her own terms. It kills Gray to leave her alone, but she needs some time.

He gives her about half an hour before intruding to sit with her. She lets him stay even when she cries, maybe because this is just another river.

She mourns at a more sedate pace for a while before falling back into almost hysterics. She cries and wails and asks why the world isn't _fair_.

And then she talks about other things, and they make Gray's heart stand still.

.

.

.

"You remind me of him."

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.

.

"You found me by the river that first time," she says, "and suddenly I saw him. I can't even explain why, really. You look a little like him, maybe. You act a little the same. You were so protective and you sat with me like he would have, before he changed.

"I think about all the things he missed in the Tower. I want him to be able to try every cake until he finds one he likes, sit out in the sunshine, have someone to stand by him like he always stood by us, make new friends, feel like he belongs somewhere. He shouldn't be locked up in the Tower or a jail or the past."

.

.

.

The full impact doesn't register quite yet, so for now Gray just stares at her with a numb sort of detachment as she lists out all of _their_ things—what _should _have been their things—and gives them to Jellal instead. She isn't entirely realizing what she's saying yet either. Maybe Gray should be flattered that she doesn't think twice about saying these things to him now.

But maybe that's just because she sees him as another Jellal.

.

.

.

Gray had maybe done too good a job with his mirror defense. He reflected people back at themselves and, more than that, a blank template where they could fill in the gaps. Anyone could find something in him that they recognized in themselves or someone else, because that was exactly how he had designed himself.

Could he blame them, then, if they looked at him and found someone else instead?

.

.

.

Erza keeps talking. She's looking in his direction, but she's looking straight through him like glass, only seeing Jellal reflected back at her.

.

.

.

And Gray wonders if she's ever really seen him at all.

* * *

**Note: Okay, confession time: this is a little bit of a schizophrenic piece lol Actually, my original intent was a sort of veeery loose Grayza-ish interpretation minus the actual romance, ending with the ending above. But then it got a lot more complicated when all the other parts become more detailed and important than I'd anticipated. It became more focused on Gray's overall life experiences and all his friends, not just Erza. But I kept the ending anyway, because that was what I went in with.**

**However! I decided not to trash the fic because I figured it wasn't a total loss. I just sort of changed my overall approach somewhere in the middle. Y'all know how I like my parallels and symbolism lol And by the end, everything is topsy-turvy from where we started: the people Gray thought didn't see him know him better than ever, and the person he first assumed knew him better than anyone wasn't quite as perceptive as he thought. And, more importantly, it's also a shift in Gray's own attitude. He's discovering some of his own blind spots and becoming more understanding and a better friend for it...but that doesn't mean he's perfect or that everything is exactly the way he assumes it is. His own development is supposed to be reflected both positively and negatively in everyone else's growth or regression as well.**

**Aaanyway, if you were expecting this to be a feel-good story about Gray's friends gradually learning how to see him for who he is, sorry. That was never what I was going for, not entirely. That's only half the story. An important half, but still half. Idk, I just feel like real life is too messy for happy clichés. It's more complicated than that, for better _and_ for worse.**


End file.
